This abduction and rescue recalled to the mind of Markandeya the story of Rama and Sita, which he proceeded to relate, at considerable length, for the edification of the Pandavas. The sage also recounted the story of Savitri, more charming than that of Orpheus and Eurydice. How the lovely Savitri set her affections upon young Satyaván, the only son of the blind Dyumatsena, ex-king of the Salwas; how she learned from the lips of the celestial sage Narada, that the beautiful youth was fated to die within a year; how notwithstanding this secret knowledge she willingly linked her lot with his; and how, when the inevitable hour arrived, and the doom of fate was accomplished in the lonely forest, her austere piety and devoted love enabled her to follow Yama, on and on with fearless footsteps and touching entreaties, as he conveyed away her dear husband’s spirit to the Land of Shades, and at last to prevail upon the dread deity to restore to her the soul of her Satyaván. “Adieu, great God!” She took the soul, No bigger than the human thumb, And running swift, soon reached her goal, Where lay the body stark and dumb. She lifted it with eager hands And as before, when he expired, She placed the head upon the bands That bound her breast, which hope new fired, And which alternate rose and fell; Then placed his soul upon his heart, Whence like a bee it found its cell, And lo, he woke with sudden start! His breath came low at first, then deep, With an unquiet look he gazed, As one awaking from a sleep, Wholly “bewildered and amazed.”[86] Of the doings of the Kauravas, during the twelve years that we have been following the fortunes of their cousins, little is recorded, and that little is not to their credit. Knowing full well where the Pandavas were passing their term of exile in the forests, Duryodhana, upon the advice of Karna, went thither in great state with a view of meanly feasting his eyes upon the wretchedness of his hated kinsmen, and of intensifying their misery by the cruel contrast between his own grandeur and their destitution. This was the real, if unworthy, motive of the journey to the forest of Kamyaka; the alleged reason was to inspect the royal cattle-stations in order to count the stock and mark the calves.[87] Attended by his courtiers, by thousands of ladies belonging to the royal household, and by a great army of followers and soldiers, Duryodhana proceeded towards the sylvan abode of the Pandavas; but his advance guard was refused admission into the forests by the Gandharvas, whose king had come with his celestial hosts and several tribes of Apsaras to have a merry time in those woods. As neither party would abate a jot of its pretensions, a terrible battle ensued, resulting in the complete defeat of the Kauravas, the ignominious flight of the redoubtable Karna, and the capture, by the victorious enemy, of Duryodhana himself, his court, and all his harem.